(345) “As soon as the members were sworn at the table, Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Grenville then a chancellor of the exchequer, arose in their places, the first to make a complaint of a breach of privilege in having been imprisoned, etc.; and Mr. Grenville, to communicate to the House a message from the King, which related to the privileges of the House:  the Speaker at the same time acquainted the House, that the clerk had prepared a bill, and submitted it to them, whether, in point of form, the reading of the bill should not be the first proceeding towards opening the session.  A very long debate ensued, which of these three matters ought to have the precedence,, -and at last it was carried in favour of the bill.”  Hatsell’s Precedents, vol. ii. p. 77.-E.

(346) Afterwards Lord Sydney.  The Townshends were supposed to be very unsteady, if not fickle, in their political conduct; a circumstance which gives point to Goldsmith’s mention of this Mr. Townshend in his character of Burke:-

“——­yet straining his throat To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote."-C.

(347) Henry Seymour Conway, only brother of Lord Hertford, at this time a groom of the bedchamber, lieutenant-general in the army, and colonel of the first regiment of dragoons.  He was, as we will see, in consequence of his opposition to government on these questions, dismissed both from court and his regiment:  but he became, on a change of ministers in 1765, secretary of state; and in 1772 was promoted to be a general; and in 1793 a field-marshal.-C.

(348) Lord North was at this time one of the junior lords of the treasury.-E.

(349) Samuel Martin, Esq.  Member for Camelford.  He had been secretary of the treasury during the Duke of Newcastle’s and Lord Bute’s administration.-E.

(350) These lines, and two others, usually appended to them—­

“He that is in battle slain
Can never rise to fight again,”

are not in Hudibras.  Butler has the same thought in two lines—­

“For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that’s slain.” 
Par. iii.  Cant. 3, 1. 243.-C.

(351) At the coronation, Lord Talbot, as lord steward, appeared on horseback in Westminster-hall.  His horse had been, at numerous rehearsals, so assiduously trained to perform what was thought the most difficult part of his duty, namely, the retiring backwards from the royal table, that, at the ceremony itself, no art of his rider could prevent the too docile animal from making his approaches to the royal presence tail foremost.  This ridiculous incident, was the occasion of some sarcastic remarks in the North Briton, of the 21st August, which led to a correspondence between Lord Talbot and Mr. Wilkes, and ultimately to a duel in the garden of the Red Lion Inn, at Bagshot, Mr. Wilkes proposed that the parties should sup together that night, and fight next morning.  Lord Talbot insisted on fighting immediately.  This altercation, and some delay of Wilkes in writing papers, which (not expecting, he said, to take the field before morning) he had left unfinished, delayed the affair till dusk, and after the innocuous exchange of shots by moonlight, the parties shook hands, and supped together at the inn with a great deal of jollity.-C.